Canadian cop drama also starring Jared Keeso is back for Season 2

Bravo’s elegant and tense police drama 19-2 returns for its second season Monday with a school shooting episode that was both emotionally and technically demanding to film. The premiere, titled School, contains countless casualties (most of them students) and a 13-minute single-camera tracking shot that’s a tour de force.

19-2, which is based on a French-Canadian TV series and is set in Montreal, has been praised by critics and drew an average of nearly 200,000 viewers per episode in its first season. It centres on hardened beat cop Nick Barron (Adrian Holmes) and his new partner Ben Chartier (Jared Keeso).

The push and pull between Nick and Jared ramps up this year as Ben is under pressure to find the identity of a mole at Station 19, and suspicion falls on Nick. Holmes spoke about Season 2 of 19-2, the new characters in Nick’s life and the show’s success.

Q: The show just got 10 Canadian Screen Awards nominations, but a lot of people feel like you should’ve got one for your role. What’s been your reaction?

A: I am so elated for my team. I couldn’t be happier. It really is a beautiful thing to be the lead on a show that is getting 10 nominations and being recognized the way it is. I do what I do because I love what I do. I don’t do it for the accolades. We support each other, and their win is my win. It’s going to be a great party.

Q: What was filming like for that Season 2 premiere?

A: It was very intense for all of us involved, and probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. At the same time, it was very rewarding to get to shoot something like that (13-minute uninterrupted shot) — getting a bit of a theatre experience on set. I got to go through all those emotions, and that real sweat. There was no scripting involved to get us sweaty. That was real sweat dripping in our eyes.

Q: The director on that episode, Podz (Daniel Grou), directed the same episode for the original French-Canadian series. Did you get a sense that he wanted to change things around the second time?

A: There are little things, little details that he didn’t get to do the first time around that he got to play with the second time around. That being said, he did such a fantastic job, there wasn’t much change needed. It was the same blocking, the same style, the same shot. But little things that only he would really know, he got to fine-tune on this go-round.

Q: Two new characters join the show this season — Nick’s cousin Kaz (Richard Chevolleau) and Kaz’s girlfriend Rita (Lisa Berry). How do they fit into Nick’s life?

A: This season, Nick is basically searching for identity and he’s got a lot of questions that he needs answered. So he goes back to his cousin Kaz, who is a criminal, but it’s the closest thing he has to family right now. He’s also hoping Kaz will help him to find out more about his father and what happened to him. It was so much fun to work with Richard, and Lisa was a delight to work with.

Adrian Holmes in the Season 2 premiere of 19-2 [Bravo/Bell]

Q: Nick has a lot of stuff going on — he’s separated from his wife, his former partner was shot. What’s been the biggest challenge of playing him?

A: Nick is so multilayered. It’s just being able to be subtle with his issues. A lot of times when you’re playing a character that comes with a lot of baggage you can overplay it and be over-the-top. But it’s about finding the right gears and tone — that’s the challenging part for me.

Q: You and Jared Keeso are longtime pals and have worked together on several projects — do you feel you’ve mastered art of hating each other on screen yet?

A: I think we’ve got that pretty down pat. This isn’t our first rodeo, so we built a level of trust and feel safe to go to places that a lot of actors have a tough time going to because they’re not sure how that actor’s going to react. He really empowers me and makes me want to be a better actor, and I feel like it’s the same for him. It’s a nice sparring session. On days off, we’ll go for drinks and enjoy the fruits of our labour.